Corset bones



T. A. ROSE CORSET BONES July 31, 1956 Filed Nov. 18, 1953 lslnnlnllllllllil.. liv

nUenioff zza/PMA feos United States Patent M' CRSET BONES.

Thomas Anthony Rose, Letchworth, England, assigner to Bender Limited', Biggleswade, England Application November.. 18,.1953S.erial.No. 392,836

Clams-priority,.applicationf Great 'Britain lvl'arch 19, 1953 '-1 Claims.. (Cl. 2-2S) This; inventionA is. lory improvements. in or relating to the stitenirtg of articles of wearing appareil and. is primarily concerned with thestiiiening. of. corsets, brassieres, ladiesstrapless. garments and' other bodyconiining or moulding garments which arestiffenedby stieners commonly referred toas. bones because. in the comparatively distant past they were commonly made of'whale bone;

However for several years whale bone has no longer been used but instead fiat steel;strips.covered with cel-V luloid, or plated fiattened-helical springs have been useds One of theA disadvantages. of. these two last-mentioned forms of stiifener or bone has. been the impossibility` of: sewingV across them without breakage of the sewing machine needle.. More. recent-ly llat strips of plastic materialhavebeen usedfor bones, but' such bones have the disadvantage that when pierced by the. machine needle a jaggedl edge is left onI the underside which is liable to cut the thread employed for the, seam', or to fray. the fabric in which the bone-is encasedin' the garment, within a short period of time. Another disadvantage of these plastic bonesl has been thatk in order to renderzthem capable beingy readily pierced by the needle and to:avoid needle breakagev it has been necessary o employ av comparatively soft plastic `which exhibits aseri'oustendency to. soften at body temperature, sothat notl onlyA is the rie .ty of the bones reduced but the bones are liable to take. up the shape of the body and so. completely. lose their desired eect.

The invention utilizes a stiffener for fabric comprising a strip of comparatively stiff material having integrally formed portions; of direrent thickness whereof at least one thin portion isfadapted'tolprovide asuitable location at which the piercing motion of the needle of a. sewing machine may take place during stitching. of the stilener toI the. fabric. Conveniently the thin portion is. disposed (e. g. as a groove) between a pair'of ridge portions which have a pitch spacingv substantially equal to the. pitch of that'stitching motion likely to beY produced by the. machine during the sitching-operation, andthe strip is con veniently of constant cross sectional shape throughout its length.

lt will be appreciated that it is possible to make such a stiiener, constituting a bone, of a material which is adapted to retain a useful degree of rigidity at body temperature, while, at the same time, ensuring that the bone is capable of being stitched through.

In general the action of the descending needle of the sewing machine will be to split the material along the thin portion or groove rather than to pierce a hole, and this of itself mitigates against the production of jagged edges that would tend to cut the sewing thread or damage the fabric. However, the strip or bone is preferably symmetrical about its general central plane so that, even it' the needle does in fact pierce a hole in the thin portion, the latter is spaced from the fabric by the ridges on opposite sides of the strip such that any jagged or lipped edges of the hole will not damage the fabric.

2,756,435 Patented Julyf 311,. 1&5'6

Desirably,` but not necessarily, thebone-isformed with at least three ofthe ridgesthereby to provide. aV plurality of i thethirrportions atleast at one face of the'bone.

Thefsidesioffthe ridge or ridges are preferably diverge, ent` so'. asto act.v as guides by which the needle ofv the sewing machine may be guided to thev locationor loca-v tions of the thin portion or portions (e. g. the bottom of the groove). during the piercing motionof the needle:4 it beingaunderstoodV that if? twoparallel ridges are i provided their divergent sides. deline between them a groove with convergent sides.

A brassiere according to this inventionand bones or stiiening strips to be employedin brassieres and*v similar garments will. now be described byway of example, with reference to the accompanyingdrawings in which:

Fig-ure l' is a'- front= perspective View of aY brassiele stittened' according to the invention.

Figure 2f is an enlarged vi'ew of part of thefabric of the brassiere incorporating astiifener or bone.

Figure 3 is an enlarged perspective view of'Figpre 2';

Figure 4 is a perspective View of astiiener or bone according to the invention.

Figure 5' is an enlarged'perspective View of part of one constructiony of stiffener or bone.

Figure 6 is a similar view to Figure 5 showing' another construction of stiiener or bone.

Figure 7 is an enlarged cross sectional view of Figure 5i Figure: 8 is an enlarged cross sectional View of Figure'.

Referring now to theV drawings a stitfener or bone 1 is provided, for use by way of example in a machine sewn brassere'zillustrated in Figure 1, which comprises a stn'p of plastic materialy as illustratedin Figure 4. The plastic materiall of synthetic resin employed, is desirably of'a kind such that the bone retains adequate rigidity at normal body and normal laundry temperatures. A thermo. plastic material e. g. a synthetic linear polyanide)4 is preferred because this permits the. ends of the bone. to be given a smoothl finish by the application of heat when individual' bonesare made by cutting lengths from a con, tinuous strip before being inserted in a garment. Itis tobeunderstood, however, that individual bones may be cut offa continuous strip at the time they are. inserted into the garment. The continuous strip may be made. by an extrusion process. Particularly suitable materialsfor. use in the present invention are nylon and'terrylene.,

The strip conveniently comprises integral. rod-like. portions or ribs. 3 (Figures 5 to 8) withV divergentsides-4, connected centrally ofV their thickness and closely spaced together by thin portions 5.

Thus, at each face of the strip there. is provided.- aplo-A rality or' longitudinal grooves (the sidesofeachof. which converge towards its. base and the grooves at each face of the strip are inregister with the groovesat the other face)`and ribs.

The transverseV pitch of the rod-like portions 3 and of the thin portions 5 (that is to say the distance, in each strip, between the base of each groove and the next) is substantially equal to the pitch of that stitching (that is to say the length of individual stitches measured lengthwise of the sewing machine seam) most likely to be produced by sewing machines during stitching of the stiiener to fabric by the machine.

As illustrated in Figure 5 the rod-like portions or ribs may be of circular section disposed side by side and lightly united in the region of the ends of a diameter and as illustrated in Figure 6 the rod-like portions or ribs may be ot' diamond section disposed side by side and lightly united at their adjacent corners. Furthermore there may be any suitable number of rod-like portions such for eX- ample as three as shown in Figure 5 and four as shown in Figure 6. The overall thickness of the bone may be about 0.1 of an inch when having diamond section r0dlike portions and it may be approximately .055 inch thick when having circular section rod-like portions. The transverse pitch of the grooves is conveniently about 0.05 inch and a suitable width for the bone is about 0.16 inch. f, In practice and assuming that the bones are provided of requisite length for insertionin the brassiere 2 these lengths will preferably have rounded ends 6 as illustrated particularly in Figure 4, produced by the suitable vapplication of heat. The bones are made of such length that a row of stitching will intersect the bones near the ends thereof and slightly spaced inwardly from the rounded ends with the result that the bones will be fastened to the fabric. More speciiically the brassiere, as is usual, is provided where necessary with elongated pockets 7 of a width slightly greater than the width of the bone so that the latter may be slid endwise into the pockets. Such pockets 'I are formed by stitching tapes or the like 8 (Figures 2 and 3) to the main fabric 9 by two parallel seams 10 disposed adjacent to the respective edges of the tape 8. After the insertion of bones into the brassiere, it is desired to seam the brassiere with one or more seams extending transversely of the bone, for example in hem-V ming an edge of the garment or reinforcing the edge by the addition of a tape il. For this purpose one row of stitching 12 extends beyond the end of the bone and a second row of stitching 13 extends transversely across the bone spaced from the rounded end 6 as before referred to. It will be appreciated that by virtue of the ribbed shape of the bone the piercing motion of the needle will tend to take place, not at any location in the width of the strip but at the bottom of the grooves, through the thin portions 5, the reason for this being that the convergent sides 4 of the rod-like portions or ribs of the strip coact with the needle to guide it to the bottom of the grooves and into the thin portions 5, and also by virtue of the fact that the transverse pitch of the rod-like portions and thin portions is substantially equal to the pitch of the stitch.

As previously mentioned the tendency is for the thin portions of the bone to be split by the needle rather than for the needle to form a hole and in any event if jagged edges are formed in the thin portions by the needle these edges are spaced from the fabric by theV ribs 3 of the bone and in general it will be appreciated that by employment of bones according to the invention the aforesaid disadvantages of known type of bones are avoided.

I claim:

l. In a stil-tened article of wearing apparel of the type comprising fabric structure including fabric layers, and stiffeners for the fabric structure disposed between said layers and connected to the fabric, said stitfeners cornprising smooth-ended strips of plastic material each having two opposed faces and each consisting of a plurality of parallel longitudinal rib portions said rib portions being interconnected by a narrow web defining a longitudinal groove between each rib portion and the next at each of the two faces, each of which grooves has needleguiding sides converging towards the base of the groove and the grooves in the two faces being in register, and

stitching extending transversely of the strips and including stitches penetrating the latter, and the fabric layers, at the bases of the grooves for securing the strips between the fabric layers and for securing the latter together.

2. In a stiened article of wearing apparel, of the group consisting of machine-sewnA body-conforming or moulding garments such as corsets and brassieres and comprising a fabric garment-structure with elongated pockets containing stiiener strips for stiffening the fabric structure, the combination of stiffener strips of plastic material each having two opposed faces and consisting of at least three parallel longitudinal rib portions defining between them at least two parallel longitudinal grooves at eachV of said two opposed faces of the strip, which rib portions are connected each to the next by material of the strip at the base of the grooves said connecting material being of a thickness capable of being pierced by a sewing machine needle and the grooves at the two faces being in register, and at least one machine-sewn line of stitching, in the fabric structure, extending transversely of a plurality of the said strips in their pockets and incorporating stitches penetrating the connecting material at the base of the grooves for securing the strips in their pockets.

3. ln a machine-sewn stiffened article of wearing apparel of the type comprising a fabric structure with elongated pockets defined by lines of stitching and containing stilener strips, the combination, with smooth-ended, ribbed, stiiener strips, in said pockets, of sythnetic linear polyamide each having two opposed faces, symmetrical about a general central plane lying between said two faces, and being ribbed at each of said opposed faces n to provide at-each face a plurality of parallel longitudinal ribs and at least one intervening groove having needleguiding sides converging towards the base thereof, and having each rib connected to the next at the base of the intervening groove by a portion of reduced thickness capable of penetration by a sewing-machine needle, of at least one machine-sewn line of stitching extending in the fabric` structure transversely of a plurality of said pockets and strips and incorporating stitches penetrating the said connecting portions and said pockets and for thereby fastening the strips in the pockets.

4. A combination according to claim 2, wherein in each strip the transverse distance between the base of cach groove and the next is substantially equal to the length of the stitches in the transverse stitching, whereby said stitches penetrate the strips only at the base of the grooves.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,661,069 Hartung Feb; 28, 1928 1,839,699 Parkhust Jan. 5, 1932 2,388,297 Slaughter Nov. 6, 1945 2,531,234 Seckel Nov. 21, 1950 2,531,843 Durey et al Nov. 28, 1950 2,649,586 Josephson Aug. 25, 1953 

